conceals with care that superiority, either of talents or of rank, which is oppressive to those who are beneath it. In a word, it is that spirit, and that tenor of manners, which the gospel of Christ enjoins when it commands us to bear one another's burdens; to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep; to please every one his neighbour for his good; to be kind and tenderhearted; to be pitiful and courteous; to support the weak, and to be patient towards all men.

XXII. DR ADAM FERGUSON.

DR ADAM FERGUSON was born at Logierait, in Perthshire, in 1724, and was educated at the nearest university, that of St Andrews. He entered the Church, and became for some time chaplain in a highland regiment; but having become connected with the Bute family, he through their influence obtained the more congenial appointment of Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. He was subsequently engaged in a political mission to America during the revolutionary war; and after again resuming the duties of his Chair for a time, he resigned his appointment, and retired to St Andrews, where he died in 1816, at the extreme age of ninety-three. He published, at different periods, "An Essay on the History of Civil Society," "Institutes of Moral Philosophy," and " History of the Roman Republic." He was in early life the companion of Robertson, Blair, and Smith; and his abilities rendered him worthy of such illustrious society. His works are characterized by their acute philosophical reflections, and his History of Civil Society" may be ranked as a companion volume to the more famous "Wealth of Nations" of his friend Adam Smith. Ferguson's style is vigorous, and often eloquent; it is, however, occasionally somewhat sententious, and in consequence rather obscure.

66

1. OF THE INFLUENCES OF CLIMATE AND SITUATION ON SOCIETY.— ("ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY," PART III., SECT. II.)

Man, in his animal capacity, is qualified to subsist in every climate. He reigns with the lion and the tiger under the equatorial heats of the sun, or he associates with the bear and the reindeer beyond the polar circle. His versatile disposition fits him to assume the habits of either condition, or his talent for arts enables him to supply its defects. The intermediate climates, however, appear most to favour his nature; and in whatever manner we account for the fact, it cannot be doubted, that this animal has always attained to the principal honours of his species within the temperate zone. The arts, which he has on this scene repeatedly invented, the extent of his reason, the fertility of his fancy, and the force of his genius in literature, commerce, policy, and war, sufficiently declare either a

INFLUENCES OF CLIMATE AND SITUATION ON SOCIETY. 375

distinguished advantage of situation, or a natural superiority of mind.

The most remarkable races of men, it is true, have been rude before they were polished. They have in some cases returned to rudeness again: and it is not from the actual possession of arts, science, or policy that we are to pronounce of their genius. There is a vigour, a reach of capacity, and a sensibility of mind, which may characterize as well the savage as the citizen, the slave as well as the master; and the same powers of the mind may be turned to a variety of purposes. A modern Greek, perhaps, is mischievous, slavish, and cunning, from the same animated temperament that made his ancestor ardent, ingenious, and bold in the camp, or in the council of his nation. A modern Italian is distinguished by sensibility, quickness, and art, while he employs on trifles the capacity of an ancient Roman, and exhibits now, in the scene of amusement, and in the search of a frivolous applause, that fire and those passions with which Gracchus burned in the forum, and shook the assemblies of a severer people.

The commercial and lucrative arts have been, in some climates, the principal object of mankind, and have been retained through every disaster; in others, even under all the fluctuations of fortune, they have still been neglected; while in the temperate climates of Europe and Asia, they have had their ages of admiration as well as contempt. In one state of society, arts are slighted, from that very ardour of mind, and principle of activity, by which, in another, they are practised with the greatest success. While men are engrossed by their passions, heated and roused by the struggles and dangers of their country; while the trumpet sounds, or the alarm of social engagement is rung, and the heart beats high, it were a mark of dulness, or of an abject spirit, to find leisure for the study of ease, or the pursuit of improvements, which have mere convenience or ease for their object. The frequent vicissitudes and reverses of fortune, which nations have experienced on that very ground where the arts have prospered, are probably the effects of a busy, inventive, and versatile spirit, by which men have carried every national pursuit to extremes. They have raised the fabric of despotic empire to its greatest height, where they had best understood the foundations of freedom. They perished in the flames which they themselves had kindled; and they only, perhaps, were capable of displaying, by turns, the greatest improvements, or the lowest corruptions, to which the human mind can be brought.

On this scene mankind have twice, within the compass of history, ascended from rude beginnings to very high degrees of refinement. In every age, whether destined by its temporary disposition to build or to destroy, they have left the vestiges of an active and vehement spirit. The pavement and the ruins of Rome are buried in dust, shaken from the feet of barbarians, who trod with contempt on the refinements of luxury, and spurned those arts, the use of which it was reserved for the posterity of the same people to discover and to

admire. The tents of the wild Arab are even now pitched among the ruins of magnificent cities; and the waste fields which border on Palestine and Syria, are perhaps become again the nursery of infant nations. The chieftain of an Arab tribe, like the founder of Rome, may have already fixed the roots of a plant that is to flourish in some future period, or laid the foundations of a fabric that will attain to its grandeur in some distant age.

Great part of Africa has been always unknown; but the silence of fame, on the subject of its revolutions, is an argument, where no other proof can be found, of weakness in the genius of its people. The torrid zone, everywhere round the globe, however known to the geographer, has furnished few materials for history; and though in many places supplied with the arts of life in no contemptible degree, has nowhere matured the more important projects of political wisdom, nor inspired the virtues which are connected with freedom, and which are required in the conduct of civil affairs. It was indeed in the torrid zone that mere arts of mechanism and manufacture were found, among the inhabitants of the new world, to have made the greatest advance; it is in India, and in the regions of this hemisphere, which are visited by the vertical sun, that the arts of manufacture, and the practice of commerce, are of the greatest antiquity, and have survived, with the smallest diminution, the ruins of time, and the revolutions of empire. The sun, it seems, which ripens the pine-apple and the tamarind, inspires a degree of mildness that can even assuage the rigours of despotical government: and such is the effect of a gentle and pacific disposition in the natives of the East, that no conquest, no irruption of barbarians, terminates, as they did among the stubborn natives of Europe, by a total destruction of what the love of ease and of pleasure had produced.

Man, in the perfection of his natural faculties, is quick and delicate in his sensibility; extensive and various in his imaginations and reflections; attentive, penetrating, and subtle in what relates to his fellow-creatures; firm and ardent in his purposes; devoted to friendship or to enmity; jealous of his independence and his honour, which he will not relinquish for safety or for profit; under all his corruptions or improvements, he retains his natural sensibility, if not his force; and his commerce is a blessing or a curse, according to the direction his mind has received. But under the extremes of heat or of cold, the active range of the human soul appears to be limited; and men are of inferior importance, either as friends or as enemies. In the one extreme, they are dull and slow, moderate in their desires, regular and pacific in their manner of life; in the other, they are feverish in their passions, weak in their judgments, and addicted by temperament to animal pleasure. In both the heart is mercenary, and makes important concessions for childish bribes: in both the spirit is prepared for servitude; in the one, it is subdued by fear of the future; in the other, it is not roused even by its sense of the present.

COMPARISON OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS, ETC.

377

2. COMPARISON OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS WITH MODERN

NATIONS.—(" CIVIL SOCIETY," PART IV., SECT. IV.)

The Greeks and Romans are indebted, for a great part of their estimation, not to the matter of their history, but to the manner in which it has been delivered, and to the capacity of their historians and other writers. Their story has been told by men who knew how to draw our attention on the proceedings of the understanding and of the heart, more than on the detail of facts, and who could exhibit characters to be admired and loved in the midst of actions which we should now universally hate or condemn. Like Homer, the model of Grecian literature, they could make us forget the horrors of a vindictive, cruel, and remorseless treatment of an enemy, in behalf of the strenuous conduct, the courage, and vehement affections, with which the hero maintained the cause of his friend and of his country.

Our manners are so different, and the system upon which we regulate our apprehensions in many things so opposite, that no less could make us endure the practice of ancient nations. Were that practice recorded by the mere journalist, who retains only the detail of events, without throwing any light on the character of the actors; who, like the Tartar historian, tells us only what blood was spilt in the field, and how many inhabitants were massacred in the city; we should never have distinguished the Greeks from their barbarous neighbours, nor have thought that the character of civility pertained even to the Romans, till very late in their history, and in the decline of their empire. To form a judgment of the character from which they acted in the field, and in their competitions with neighbouring nations, we must observe them at home. They were bold and fearless in their civil dissensions, ready to proceed to extremities, and to carry their debates to the decision of force. Individuals stood distinguished by their personal spirit and vigour, not by the valuation of their estates, or the rank of their birth. They had a personal elevation founded on the sense of equality, not of precedence. The general of one campaign was during the next a private soldier, and served in the ranks. They were solicitous to acquire bodily strength; because, in the use of their weapons, battles were a trial of the soldier's strength as well as of the leader's conduct. The remains of their statuary show manly grace, an air of simplicity and ease, which, being frequent in nature, were familiar to the artist. The mind perhaps borrowed a confidence and force from the vigour and address of the body; their eloquence and style bore a resemblance to the carriage of the person. The understanding was chiefly cultivated in the practice of affairs. The most respectable persons were obliged to mix with the crowd, and derived their degree of ascendency only from their conduct, their eloquence, and personal vigour. They had no forms of expression to mark a ceremonious and guarded respect. Invective proceeded

to railing, and the grossest terms were often employed by the most admired and accomplished orators. Quarreling had no rules but the immediate dictates of passion, which ended in words of reproach, in violence, and blows. They fortunately went always unarmed; and to wear a sword in times of peace, was among them the mark of a barbarian. When they took arms in the divisions of faction, the prevailing party supported itself by expelling their opponents, by proscriptions, and bloodshed. The usurper endeavoured to maintain his station by the most violent and prompt executions. He was opposed in his turn by conspiracies and assassinations, in which the most respectable citizens were ready to use the dagger. Such was the character of their spirit, in its occasional ferments at home; and it burst commonly with a suitable violence and force against their foreign rivals and enemies. The amiable plea of humanity was little regarded by them in the operations of war. Cities were razed or enslaved; the captive sold, mutilated, or condemned to die.

When viewed on this side, the ancient nations have but a sorry plea for esteem with the inhabitants of modern Europe, who profess to carry the civilities of peace into the practice of war, and who value the praise of indiscriminate lenity at a higher rate than even that of military prowess, or the love of their country. And yet they have, in other respects, merited and obtained our praise. Their ardent attachment to their country; their contempt of suffering and of death in its cause; their manly apprehensions of personal independence, which rendered every individual, even under tottering establishments and imperfect laws, the guardian of freedom to his fellow-citizens; their activity of mind; in short, their penetration, the ability of their conduct and force of their spirit, have gained them the first rank among nations. If their animosities were great, their affections were proportionate; they perhaps loved where we only pity, and were stern and inexorable where we are not merciful, but only irresolute. After all, the merit of a man is determined by his candour and generosity to his associates, by his zeal for national objects, and by his vigour in maintaining political rights; not by moderation alone, which proceeds frequently from indifference to national and public interests, and which serves to relax the nerves on which the force of a private as well as a public character depends.

HENRY MACKENZIE.

The writings of HENRY MACKENZIE belong to the third period of our literature, both in point of time and style, though he himself survived till long after the extinction of the taste which prevailed when his works were issued. He was born in Edinburgh in 1745, and re